Recall To Pride - Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012

In my hour of despair (a little more than an hour) the disability movement taught me that my problem had two parts.
One part was my illness, the suffering that causes and the things that stops me doing. The other part was people's attitudes and the way our society is set-up. Only one of those was something I had to deal with on my own.

Before then, whenever I met prejudice or poor access, I thought it was because I was broken. Whenever I read something in a newspaper condemning people like me or reducing people like me to a set of negative experiences, I thought it was because I was broken. I thought that I owed the world an explanation. I thought I had to explain why I couldn't do certain things, and explain how much I wanted to, and how I really really couldn't help it. Honest. I thought I had to constantly explain about being broken.

I am not broken. I am just not very well.

In recent years, the disability movement in the UK has been on the defensive. Being denied the financial and practical means to live a full and meaningful life, people have been scared. Some have been scared to death.
There's nothing wrong with talking about suffering, about poverty. There's nothing wrong about the things we've lost and the things we're going to lose. There's nothing wrong with people who are in fear of their lives expressing that fear. Sometimes, we owe it to ourselves to be honest with the world about what we're going through.

But essential benefits and services are not a matter of compassion. We don't need to persuade anyone that we're all good people who suffer dreadfully and are therefore deserving of charity. We don't need to express gratitude that we are allowed to exist. We don't need to constantly refer to ourselves as genuinely disabled, as if there's any other kind. These things only play into the hands of people who think that there are deserving and undeserving disabled people and no matter what happens, the most needy people are bound to be looked after.

Cuts to essential benefits and services are a matter of social justice. Whoever we are, whatever the nature of our impairments, whether or not we are good patients, whether or not we were ever hard-workers, tax-payers, whether or not we are suffering or actually get a lot of pleasure out of life, or both, we are entitled to respect and dignity and the means to survive.

Disability pride is not about saying, “Hooray, I'm disabled!” It is not about saying, I don't suffer or I wouldn't change this about my life.

Disability pride is about saying, we're often up against it but

I am proud of who I am.
I am proud of my friends.
I am proud of the disabled community, which like any family has a few eccentric aunts and that half-brother we must never ever speak about.

It's about saying,

I will not apologise.
I won't apologise for having these limitations.
I won't apologise for the medical events that happen to me.
I won't apologise if my presence embarrasses you
I won't apologise if you don't understand my situation. I don't need you to. I don't understand yours either, but you have my respect.

Disabled people never got anywhere by begging. Disabled people changed the world in which we live by recognising our own inherrent value.
This is why, collectively, we mustn't despair, however bleak things get. Because having equal or equivalent opportunities, having the dignity of being clean and fed and sheltered even if we need help from others, being treated with respect rather than abuse or condescension. These things are not a prize we won in a draw.

That's social justice. It's what everyone has a right to. And it's what we have a right to too. Too.

11 comments:

It's funny, but after all that I've been through in the last couple of years, I've always been embarrassed and guilty to refer to myself as being disabled.

Denial is a powerful stage in the trauma cycle.

Yet this year, this BADD 2012, I've been aware of a change within myself.

I'm so very, very pleased that I decided not to go with one of the web accessibility ideas I was mulling over.

I know my article is a little light-hearted but, after the endless changes of mind for a topic and the hundreds of re-writes I've noticed a change in the way I view myself.

I may have a small disability in comparison to the thousands of disabled folk in the UK but, for the first time, I can look at myself and say "I'm Gary and I'm disabled".

My prior experiences within the web accessibility community have helped me along to be sure. But, and it's a massive but, it's the people - like yourself - who form the backbone of the UK's on-line disability community who have helped me the most.

I'm getting here very late, but I've gotten around to reading most of the posts very late.

This is the first BADD in which I've participated, and it's been such a good experience. I have learned so much from reading other peoples' posts. And your post and video have given me such a lot to think about.

Thank you for putting this event together. I will definitely be participating next year.